14
Jul

Four Weeks And Forever Counting

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Today's Reality

Yesterday marked four weeks since my son passed away. It’s difficult to comprehend so much time has already gone by, but indeed it has. I returned to work full-time two weeks ago, and have been running through a fairly normal schedule of activities; my managers, however, appear to have been giving me some leeway and not pressuring me for a lot of things. I am grateful for their concern and compassion.

The last condolence cards I’ve seen came in last week, and my wife and I have begun sending out thank-you notes. There were about 50 different cards and letters to come in, some with very touching messages that made us both tear up as we read them. Two of them were from parents who had also lost teenage sons, one of those being the first to drown in the same lake. Others were from people we have never met, but who heard the news and reached out to offer their hearts and to share our grief.

During these weeks, there hasn’t been a single waking minute in which I haven’t thought about my son. I think about all the things we did together, and all the things I wished we had done; sometimes, it feels like there are more sad memories than happy ones. As I wander through my thoughts, I wonder if he ever realized how proud I was of him and all of his accomplishments… if he did, he surely didn’t let on that he knew. He was always pushing himself to do better at everything, whether it was playing his trumpet, assembling a project for school, or working with his 4-H goats. He had worked very hard to become a section leader in the school band, and after he was selected he still didn’t let up. He even pushed himself to organize the pizza party at the lake that fateful day, settling for nothing less than putting it all together by himself.

He had set some very lofty goals for himself – he wanted to be class valedictorian; he planned to go to an Ivy League school; and he wanted to work in government somewhere, perhaps even serving in an elected office one day. Although we will never truly know, I am quite certain he would have done well in anything he had set his mind to do.

The weeks will continue to pass, and with each we will move a little further down the road. The pain we feel today will slowly fade with the passage of time, but the thoughts and memories will never end.

Tags: , , , , , ,

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Today's Reality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One comment

Julie Carriker
 1 

Mike, another beautiful tribute. I am certain your son knew how proud you are of him, because you are the kind of dad to show it in many different ways. It sounds like you did a marvelous job raising a loving, caring, decent human being, and you can be proud of that also. Hopefully, as you are able to work through your pain and grief, you will be write of this special young man enough for all of us to know and love him too. He will never truly be gone as long as he is in the hearts and minds of others.

July 15th, 2010 at 5:18 pm

Leave a reply

Name (*)
Mail (will not be published) (*)
URI
Comment
*